Private astronaut Richard Garriott says he carried some of the ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan to the ISS in 2008 and stored it there.
A one-time private astronaut reveals he has secretly put away Star Trek the ashes of actor James Doohan aboard the International Space Station. Doohan was a little known but highly accomplished actor, especially on television, when he scored his big break as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott on Star Trek: The Original Series.
Indeed, the role of Scotty would be a huge boon to Doohan’s career as he would play the character on the big screen seven times, starting with the years 1979. Star Trek: The Motion Picture and ending with 1994’s Star Trek: Generations. Doohan also got to play Scott Star Trek: The Next Generation in a memorable episode that revives the long-lost Starfleet officer after locking his cartridge in a transport cycle for 75 years (a fitting fate for the character associated with the iconic phrase “Beam me up, Scotty. “). After Doohan passed away in 2005 at the age of 85, his family attempted to give the fictional space traveler a real trip to the stars by launching his ashes aboard a sub-orbital rocket that returned to Earth after a short flight (unfortunately, the ashes lost on a mountain slope).
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It has now been revealed for the first time that some of Doohan’s remains have been given a more permanent place in Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Entrepreneur Richard Garriott has just revealed it The times that in 2008, when he flew to the ISS as a private astronaut aboard a Russian capsule, he secretly carried a photo of Doohan with some of his ashes laminated on it and covered it under the floor covering in the space station had put away. As Garriott said:
‘It was completely clandestine … His family was happy that the ashes had stayed there, but were disappointed that we couldn’t talk about it publicly. Enough time has passed now that we can do that. James Doohan was given his resting place among the stars. “
Garriott says he was approached by Doohan’s son Chris just days before his $ 30 million 12-day private flight to the ISS through Space Adventures, the company he co-founded, about the possibility of sending his father’s ashes into space. to get. Since Garriott’s flight, the ISS has logged 1.7 billion miles in orbit, with a small piece of Doohan literally hidden in the floor.
In fact, Doohan was not the first Star Trek-related figure to leave Earth posthumously, as show creator Gene Roddenberry released his own remains into space in 1997. Having his ashes smuggled to the space station does indeed seem like a fitting last adventure for Doohan, who may have considered to act Star Trek a rather mundane feat given that as a young Canadian soldier he stormed the beaches of Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion. After years of Doohan’s ashes living in secret aboard the ISS, it’s nice that this story has finally made its way to the world, so Star Trek fans can enjoy knowing that the beloved Scotty really got blasted.
Source: The Times
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